Rally the troops and prepare to march to pastures new with the release of the Battlefields Expanded major update! Featuring the long awaited queue system, 8 entirely new maps, a complete overhaul to existing game levels along with a volley full of features pertaining to Holdfast's squad system and so much more.

Take a read of everything below to get a taste of the scale this update has to offer.


Thanks to a complete overhaul of our back-end across previous updates totaling to over 9 months worth of development hours, we’ve been able to develop some long awaited features for the game. One such feature is a server queue system which will now be implemented across all official servers.

When a server becomes full, players wishing to connect will be placed within a queue. As slots become available your position in the queue will advance until you are the next to join. Players will also be prompted to join a recommended server should they not wish to wait around for a slot to become available.

You’re also free to continue browsing the main menu or head over to the barracks to customise your character as you wait in queue.


To compliment the new queue system and to help keep fighting engaging for those populating fresh servers, 8 entirely new maps have been added into the public rotation.

Buckland Banks, Crossroads, Convoy, Domont Gardens, Isle of Wake, Lindisfarne, Tropics and Vestiges are all playable across both the Army Battlefield and Army Conquest game modes. Each map features a unique environment and design along with some new playful additions that’ll make for some good fun.


Alongside the new additions to the battlefields of Holdfast. we also took the time to go back and rework some of the game's longest serving maps, some of which dated back to the game's release on Early Access in 2017.

A good majority of these changes were environmental changes, especially the Oak Environment which was entirely overhauled (thanks to the Oak summoning circle 🌳) but with some maps we paid extra attention to the design of their gameplay areas and issue some much needed improvements.

We’ve made sure to pay proper tribute to these classics by staying true to their character while bringing them into the new age. Check out the full change log for a list of all the maps that have undergone a redesign.


This update also brings with it a plethora of quality of life changes, namely we’ve taken a look at the officer squad camp system to further improve the flow of both placing and joining squad camps.

A new ability bind for placing the squad camp has been added for the officer along with the new 'Reinforce' order allowing them to ping a location to direct their squad members. Officers now gather experience for kills earned by their squad members.

Gather up squad mates with greater ease while playing as the officer class! Now players will be able to enlist in your squad simply by running up to you or your squad camp and pressing their ‘USE’ key.

Additionally, all players no yet in a squad will be notified with a small widget when a squad camp is placed for the first time. Simply hold ‘USE’ to join a squad when this quick widget pops up and you’ll respawn at the camp upon next life.

In efforts to improve the general siege experience, attacking forces are now able to employ the use of Officer Squad Camps in order to gain additional attacking positions during a siege promoting a much more engaging gameplay for those on both sides of the engagement.

The locations in which these tents can be placed has been heavily restricted in order to maintain a good game-play balance and reinforcements have been adjusted accordingly.

We look forward to welcoming any and all feedback regarding these changes.


Finally a brief look at some of the many quality of life additions we’ve implemented this update. On first game launch players will now be prompted to calibrate their monitors to the desired brightness, this can be adjusted again via the games video settings tab.

For further clarity on intractable objects a new highlight effect will show around objects which you can interact with. Similarly, sapper objects that cannot be built due to a obstruction will now appear slightly transparent.

Faction balancing has also been adjusted to prevent one faction from having an overwhelming number of player on low-pop servers and will reactively adjust according to the number of players in the server.

This post truly doesn’t do justice to the amount of new features, changes and general development time taken for this major update for the game. It comes as part of one of many updates focused to continue with our aim of bring Holdfast into the new era.

Be sure to take a read of the entire changelog below and keep an eye out for more yet to come. Your support always comes most appreciated and it allows us to continue developing the game we all love. Until next time, may good health be yours. :oheart:

http://discordfastgame

[discord.gg]Changelog 95 - Game Version 2.22.9014.15198

Count
● 17 new features and improvements.
● 33 gameplay additions.
● 2 optimisations.
● 3 quality of life additions.
● 2 graphical additions.
● 4 server configuration additions.
● 99 bug fixes.

Changelog 96 - Game Version 2.22.9015.17582

● Solved an instance of performance degradation.

Click here for the full change log.[wiki.holdfastgame.com]


- Anvil Game Studios

Refleax, Rycon, Dreas, Walki, Jackson, Harper, Storey, UberJuice, Stan, Gest, Matt, Grandayy, Charles:Cute_Rat: & Winston (The Cat).

Engage in large scale Holdfast battles on the go with the official verification and release of Holdfast: Nations At War on the Steam Deck. From land to sea you'll now be able to partake in all that Holdfast goodness in powerful handheld format.
As part of our efforts to bring Holdfast into the new age, a portion of the team has been hard at work not only making Holdfast accessible for those who prefer to play with a controller but also gaining the verification and official support for the Steam Deck console.

Development with the Steam Deck was pleasantly straightforward and a lot of the game worked with little to no intervention. With a few touch ups and thanks to the Steam Deck's powerful hardware and brilliant design, it happily runs Holdfast and it's shenanigans with great graphical fidelity and at an impressive frame rate.


Following up this Steam Deck release, next month will introduce the Battlefields Expanded update, the largest undertaking of map reworks we have done to date. Featuring improved gameplay designs, new environments and much more. Every single Nations At War map has been looked over and updated to our current standard.

But that's not all! Alongside the map reworks we will be bringing 8 entirely new public play battlefields that will be made available for both low and high population servers. These maps will compliment the queue system that'll also be featured within this update.

Quality of life improvements have also been on the forefront of this update and part of this will include easier ways to join squads created by officers. Get ready to rally the troops! One of these new ways will be a prompt on the officer itself allowing nearby players to simply interact with the officer to join their squad.

The above is just a taste of a plethora of new features and additions to the game, there's plenty more that'll be dropping with this update. Public testing is currently ongoing with an estimated release scheduled for next month once the testing phase has concluded.

Want to take part in the next Public BETA Test? Head over to our Official Holdfast BETA Discord server to get involved and provide feedback.

Join The BETA Discord[discord.gg]

Stay tuned for more to come and until next time, may good health be yours. :oheart:


- Anvil Game Studios

Refleax, Rycon, Dreas, Walki, Jackson, Harper, Storey, UberJuice, Stan, Gest, Matt, Grandayy, Charles:Cute_Rat: & Winston (The Cat).